This sidewalk on the east side of Ramsay High School on 19th Street South in Birmingham is shut down and fenced off. Birmingham's proposed $150 million bond issue includes $1.65 million to repair or replace sidewalks throughout the city. (The Birmingham News/Joe Songer).

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- Birmingham Mayor William Bell's list of city-wide improvements for his proposed $150 million bond initiative ranges from streetlights, paving and traffic signals to the demolition of Boutwell Auditorium and construction of a new downtown event center.

The 11 pages of projects, color-coded by short-term and long-term spending, are what Bell plans to tout in his campaign to win public approval in a referendum that he wants scheduled for Oct. 9.

But it's what was left off of Bell's list, and who was left out of its creation, that has a majority of City Council members demanding that it be scrapped and replaced with a new plan.

As it plans to hold another work session and a series of city-wide community meetings, most of the council is in no hurry to meet Bell's proposed deadline for the vote.

"As long as America is America, you'll be able to go to the bond market," said Council President Roderick Royal. "If it's good, it's good, and it's going to work. I don't think the council should be under an artificial timeline."

While Bell had asked council members for their lists of preferred projects as he prepared the plan, only a few turned them in, and most members said they were confused about the process. Bell had said he would meet individually with each council member, but most said that never occurred.

"I did not pursue an itemized agenda because I needed to understand the process before I started making a list," said Councilwoman Kim Rafferty.

'Scraps'

Although the members who turned in project lists appear to be pleased with the proposal, Bell must return to the negotiating table with the council, which holds the key to bringing his programs to a vote.

PROPOSED BOND PROJECTS

Items on Birmingham Mayor William Bell's proposed phase-one list of capital projects from a $150 million bond issue are:

Citywide street resurfacing, $10.9 million

City event center, $10 million

Landfill improvements and expansion, $6.3 million

Local match to federal money to build intermodal transit facility on Morris Avenue, $6 million

Warming and teaching pool at Crossplex sports facility, $4 million

Matching money for vehicle and pedestrian bridges in North Birmingham, $3.66 million

Commercial district redevelopment, $3.55 million

Upgrades at city-owned buildings including municipal court, $3.5 million

Millions more in neighborhood street work, library, park and community center enhancements

"I'm very disturbed that the very people that you are expecting to work with you are the last people that you talked to," Rafferty said. "It was bad planning and bad presentation, and I don't hold much confidence in what was given to us."

Bell, who has held his own series of meetings with neighborhood officers and residents, said his list was the result of those gatherings. Still, most council members said they will organize their own forums with residents to learn first-hand their needs and desires for the $150 million spending plan.

"I've heard the mayor's proposals for the bonds, but I'd also like to hear what the citizens are saying," said Councilwoman Maxine Parker, whose district is represented on Bell's list with $3.66 million in matching money for vehicle and pedestrian bridges in northern Birmingham.

Still, Parker said she wants assurances that her area will get its proper share in the massive spending plan. That did not occur in the last major bond initiative of 2002, when only $2.5 million was spent in her area, she said. Residents must be convinced they can trust city officials this time, Parker said.

"It makes my citizens feel as if we only get the scraps," she said. "So it's time for us to get some of the real money that we are voting for."

Parker called any spending list meaningless without significant input from the citizenry.

"We can give him what we think, but do we have what the people are thinking?" she said. "They should be telling me what it is that they want. Let them be the driving force behind the bonds."

Bell's chief of staff, Chuck Faush, said the mayor considered the council in his plan, first by asking members for input and then by including $1 million extra for each district.

Bell in January said he would meet with each council member to compile a list of needs, both neighborhood-specific and citywide. He later asked them to turn in requests. Faush said Bell remains open to council recommendations and more public hearings, but urged that it all be done quickly to not lengthen the process.

Repeated efforts to reach Bell to comment were unsuccessful.

Bell's proposal consists of more than $65 million in specific spending, with an additional $9 million set aside for non-assigned spending in each district. The remaining $75 million would be reserved for future capital projects.

Bell's extra $1-million-per-district allocation is the same proposal former Mayor Larry Langford made when pitching his plan for citywide improvements in 2007. While that was not a bond initiative, Langford proposed the allocation to help persuade skeptical council members to approve his plan. It was never approved, though.

Some support

While most council members late last week panned Bell's plan and called for scrapping it, not every council member did.

Councilwoman Valerie Abbott said she sent her proposal to the mayor as requested, and her projects were included on the list.

Councilman Jay Roberson said he was pleased with most items planned for his district, saying he consulted with neighborhood leaders before submitting the requests.

"We were assertive in our district to make sure we reached out to our neighborhood presidents," Roberson said. "The list I got as it relates to District 7 was pretty much what I communicated with the mayor's office."

Bell's list for Roberson's district includes street improvements for a Jefferson Avenue Southwest bridge and Grasselli Avenue, and matching money for the Red Mountain Park entrance road off Ishkooda Road and Lakeshore Parkway.

Roberson said he would seek to add other projects, including improvements to Viola Avenue and enhancements to Wiggins Park baseball and softball fields.

"It was a draft to the council for consideration, so that told me it was not a final list," Roberson said. "I do understand where my colleagues are coming from. We have to be able to sell the bond referendum to the constituency, and in order to do that it has to be projects that they have input in. I appreciate the position of the mayor coming back to at least let each councilor have input."

The division between mayor and council might slow the process but won't derail it, said Natalie Davis, political science professor at Birmingham-Southern College.

The back-and-forth between the council and the mayor is something people expect, she said. "The negotiation process can be wrenching, but in the end everybody comes to the conclusion that if we don't agree on something, then we get no bond issue. You have to show the flag for your district. In the end, everybody will get something."

After the negotiations are complete, Davis said, she expects Birmingham voters will approve the final bond proposal.

"I don't buy the view that the Birmingham residents are all that hostile to things like bond issues," she said. "They may be cynical to politics and politicians."

However, Larry Powell, a pollster and political communications professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, offered a different view. Powell sees a more skeptical voting public as elected leaders ask them to approve more spending and bond debt.

"The voters will be harder to convince than the City Council," he said. "The specter of Jefferson County's bond problems still hangs over the city. The public will be highly skeptical."

Councilman Steven Hoyt said the disconnect at City Hall is troubling. Looking over the list, Hoyt said some projects -- including spending $10 million for a new event center downtown to replace Boutwell -- should be secondary to long-standing neighborhood needs.

"Folks are tired of riding on potholes. Our neighborhoods are in such disrepair," Hoyt said. "It seems like the same old, same old -- the neighborhoods get less and downtown gets the best."

Following the announcement of major downtown initiatives including a hotel and entertainment district at the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex and a baseball stadium for downtown, Bell has promised a stronger focus on neighborhood revitalization.

Phase-one list

Items on his phase-one list for neighborhoods include:

A $1.3 million match to federal money for a linear park along Village Creek.

$2.07 million to build a road in Pratt City from Dugan Avenue to Sheridan Road, serving a new residential development.

More than $1.25 million in paving and infrastructure improvements on 12th Street from Lomb Avenue to Third Avenue West; Ensley Avenue along 20th Street to Warrior Road; and 19th Street, Ensley, from Bush Boulevard to Tuxedo Junction.

$1.65 million for sidewalks citywide, to match a federal grant.

But most neighborhood-specific projects, including improvements to city parks, recreation centers and streets, are listed in white on the mayor's list, meaning they are not prioritized in the first phase of spending.

"Several council members were displeased that the lists were not neighborhood-specific projects," Royal said. "You've got to ask, what about the curbs and gutters that were promised years ago for North Pratt and other places? What about remaining sewer installation for Oakridge, Dolomite and curbs and gutters for Fairmont? I'm not in any rush. I'd rather do it right."

Rafferty underscored the need for a systematic, much slower approach to the bond initiative.

"You hurry up, you make mistakes," she said, adding that voters already have a lot on their minds with the November presidential election. "We do not need to overweigh them on this issue. We want them to be informed, we want them to be educated and actually participate in the process, because if we rush this we're going to have poor participation and poor voter turnout."